The American Forces Radio and Television service touched a lot of people. Whether talent, support or listeners it touched a lot of us in ways that stateside media could only dream of. This website is unofficial and does not imply any endorsement from AFRTS, the Department of Defense or the United States government.
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Thom Whetston

From 1972-97 I was a radio announcer, mostly in the Northeast. I had the most fun with Armed Forces Radio first in Korea then in Panama. A lot of the time it was spontaneous or improvised and that made for a great learning laboratory. The network DJs, Charlie Tuna, Wolfman, Kris Erik Stevens, Jim Pewter, LaRita Shelby and the rest were so consistent, it was and amazing thing to hear. Then to Massachusetts and WEIM, WKNE, WKBK, WFGL, WMDK, WKBR, WCGY, WSRS, WGAW. Most of them don't exist as anything that resembles a radio station. I'm always ready to trade war stories... Thom Whetston afrts@live.com 612-356-AFRS (612)356-2377

Friday, January 30, 2015

He was BDN's oldest staff member - in terms of service with the network; he joined the station in 1945 while in the military stationed in Vienna. "I started on Aug. 16, 1945, in Vienna, then moved to Linz, then to Vienna and then to Salzburg and back to Vienna before returning to Salzburg. I married my wife in Salzburg in the Mirabell Castle and had the wedding party in Schloss Klessheim."

Mr. Miller was not only program director of BDN and also hosted shows like "Doctor music", "The judge is you", but also worked as "Area Cmd. Sports Director" with BDN (successing Gar Fairbanks, who returned to the states in 1954). His extraordinary memory was (and is) legend - he could recall the results from sports events dating back about five years without any problems and also give the names of players.

Bud Miller also initiated "Luncheon Matinee" - a mid day request program, which was also named „Noontime notes“

In 1955 Bud Miller moved to Germany and worked as program director of the Armed Forces Network in Frankfurt.

Dave Stewart sends the following:

I forward this for your information since many of you knew or worked with Bud.

It is with regret that I share with you the news of the passing of Vincent “Bud” Miller. Bud died peacefully in his sleep.

We are working to have an AFN representative attend the funeral next Thursday.

The funeral is set for Thursday, 5 February at 1400. Bud's remains will be cremated and the urn

interred at the Using City Cemetery on that day.

The widow has asked that there be no flowers. The attendance by a senior AFN Representative would

be a wonderful gesture to a Gentlemen that gave a large part of his life to the Network. Here is a

short bio that I sent to the AFN Group page yesterday.

"Bud was a legend in AFN history. He started in military broadcasting with the Blue Danube Network

at war's end and served in the North Apennines and Po Valley Campaigns in Italy and Austria with a

Photo Squadron of the Army Air Corps. Bud was discharged as a Sergeant in 1946 and started his

long civilian career with Armed Forces Radio serving first in the Blue Danube Network out of Linz

Austria and then with AFN Europe.

Bud was also a great COMREL conduit between the Americans and Germans. He organized the annual

Fasching Club storming of AFN HQ during the Carnival season. He also hosted a jazz program on

Hessischer Rundfunk for many years.

Bud served as the Station Manager for AFN Stuttgart before moving to take over the AFN Frankfurt

Thursday, January 29, 2015

It looks like we have many new visitors. Welcome! If you enjoy what you see, tell your friends. A line in an email... a quick Facebook or Twitter post. Those help a lot. If there's something that you'd like to see more of please let me know. The biggest problem is finding it usually. There is a mailing list. Approximately weekly I send out an email listing all of the updates. Click here to be added Makes it easier to not miss something important to you. And now on with the show.

Monday, January 26, 2015

I found it! Our PCAN origins. The whole story. It is a good thing I belong to newspaper archives for my genealogy research. Now I understand the reason why AFRTS (AFN) has no records of our origins. We created AFRS. Not the other way around. When they destroyed the records at SCN, they destroyed the origins of the AFN. The person who gave that order destroyed the history of the entire network. PCAN was responsible for the creation of AFRS.

I am attaching the newspaper articles I found. You ALL need to read these.

In April 1941, a group of artillery soldiers took it upon themselves to start PCAN (Panama Coast Artillery News) and PCAC (Panama Coast Artillery Corps)
The artillery soldiers decided to set up two little 50 watt radio stations for the 30,000 artillery soldiers spread through the jungles of Panama building artillery defense for the canal zone. The little stations were operated by the Jarman Junglemen Artillery Corps named after their beloved Major General Sandeford Jarman. The Jungleers created their own unofficial call letters which essentially belonged to the Signal Corps. They created their own radio stations to provide entertainment and news for the 30,000 soldiers spread through the jungle. They operated 4 hours per day.

A few months later, MSG Clay Doster, editor of the Artillery News sent a letter to NBC's "Blue Network" requesting some old recordings and transcriptions for their little stations to air for the troops. The vice president of NBC who received their letter was a former Doughboy and decided to adopt the two little 50 watt stations as honorary affiliates of the NBC "Blue Network". They immediately sent 1000 recordings weighing one ton, to the 2 stations. The President of NBC went on the air to personally welcome the adopted stations to the NBC network as honorary affiliates in a two hour special program nationwide on Sept 11, 1941 to tell the public PCAN's colorful story along with several guest celebrities. I found about 5 newspaper articles about this. I have attached them.

Clearly embarrassed by this situation after NBC "Adopted" the soldiers whose needs were not being provided for, the military decided to create a network to provide radio services to their soldiers, many fighting the wars overseas or protecting our territories, by creating the AFRS network a year later. PCAN was their first station... before AFRS ever existed. This is why AFN was missing the records for the origins of SCN because we existed before they did. And because some unthinking person ordered the destruction of our records... all of that history was lost. I'm grateful that the NBC President decided to make a big deal out of the event and made sure our story was in the newspapers and on national radio with a huge two hour, celebrity studded welcoming program just for PCAN & PCAC as their new adopted affiliates. That is the only reason the story was in the papers for us to recover the history. This really put the military on the spot for not providing an organized source of entertainment and news to their troops.

So a year after the soldiers had built their own radio stations... the military was embarrassed into creating AFRS. Now I need to correct and update our history. It is a crying shame it was lost. It needs to be returned to its true place in the origins and history of AFN.

Here are newspaper articles with the entire story of PCAN and the NBC adopting them and the welcoming 2 hours special program aired nationwide. These are from newspapers in Canton, Ohio and New Orleans, etc.

Well into the 1970s and 80s AFRTS drew from their library of classic old-time radio broadcasts. One of these new anthology shows was "Adventure Theater". This time it's a 1977 rebroadcast of Phillip Marlowe and "The Persian Slippers". Originally aired in 1948, Marlowe tries to find a woman who has left her husband and disappeared.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Tom Kirby was from Massachusetts, ended up in the Army with a stopover in Ft Huachucha them to Fort Clayton in the Canal Zone, doing radio and televison. By the 1980s Tom was a news director at a station in Minneapolis. In 1965 here's what happened on 79/1420 khz...

Saturday, January 24, 2015

I found your email and I thought you would be a good place to start. My father, Major James Reid Lapp, the former Network Chief in Korat in 1974 and later the Commander of FEN in Japan, passed this morning shortly after midnight in Gloucester, VA.

I suppose that there might be a "Remembrance" website of some sort, but I figured that you would have better insight to this than I.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Dick Sinclair was in the first class of AFRS talent during WWII. He later served with the Mosquito Network on Guadacanal. When he came back he had a big career, mostly hosting polkas. In the 50s and 60s that really was a huge deal.

Dick was doing Polka Party starting in the 1950s and AFRTS picked it up. We were running the show well into the 1960s

So it's been busy. Just picked up a lot of 1968-69 material with a lot of Joe Allison, Roger Carroll Bill Stewart with a bunch of single shows from others. I'm doubly happy because the collection had a hole in that time frame. Thank you Barry for helping to make it happen!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Here's Dick Crawford with some dinnertime Music of the Continent. Today the highlight is on the Americans. Dick did the show from the late 50s until the mid-60s. I can see a lot of Colonels grooving...

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Dick was an announcer/host during WWII, can't confirm an AFRS assignment. Did you hear anything about that? Entertainment was in his blood and after the war there was a lot of local broadcasting and theater. In 1955 he first went to CBS. In 1960 starred in the Broadway "Bye Bye Birdie" before getting the Dick Van Dyke show.

Between those, Dick was doing "Flair" at ABC radio, the show sounded a lot like "Monitor" but with a Flair... We had it on AFRTS take a listen.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Rex Lipton went on to Hollywood after the War, but in 1945 he was writing scripts for the PAO office in the Canal Zone. In early television he was involved behind the scenes in the Roy Rogers Show, Burns and Allen, Sgt Preston and many other credits in television and the movies.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Okay 6 minutes [EDIT 9 mins. past midnight 2015] to the new year and I'm sitting here with my frightened dog, and the Icelanders, who are usually big spenders on firecrackers, are going berserk!

BTW That word: berserk comes into English from the Icelandic!

I'm going to upload for you on my Dropbox an old HIFI STEREO off-air VHS recording of the Navy Broadcasting Service, Keflavik, Iceland and it's THE MORNING SHOW, unfortunately the lady never mentions her name in the recording, but I think Thomas Jones may help with that.

And, oh, yeah this is recorded from the stations FM broadcast channel, in Reykjavik, Niceland.

By the 1950s radio was changing. The US networks were producing a lot less programming. AFRTS got creative. "Enchanted Keyboard" was a pianist and an announcer. The pianists came from all walks of music. The program was produced in Los Angeles.